We’re getting a lot of work done on the game these weeks. That’s great! A lot of the work is taking place behind the scenes deep in the bowels of the mean machine that is our game engine Spatifo.

Carsten is working on the level elements, and they’re looking awesome. We still need to do tons of work on the editor, game logic, physics, weapons, dynamic objects, enemies and stuff. Below is a couple of screenshots from the Chase Ace level editor.

The game editor offers all the options we as developers had at hand when designing levels. Trigger logic, dynamic objects, gun turrets, power-ups and enemies. Yes, it is buggy, yes, it is crufty – But hey, I can’t think of many games that offer the same kind of flexibility.

We were literally flooded in user generated levels (a small selection of which remain available). You guys invented spectacular level designs that none of us had dreamed of. You used our tool to create stuff that we would never have thought of in a million years.

That, was the single-most rewarding thing about making Chase Ace 2 – Seeing all that stuff that you guys made with it.

A golden rule of thumb is: “If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it”. This – obviously – means that Chase Ace – Off-World Leagues will ship with a full-featured level editor, just like its ancestors.

Now we have reached a point where the editor works for our design and development purposes. It is however far from being finished to a degree where we would like to release it to the public. Never the less we think that you should have a little preview:

Carsten who worked with us in the winter is back on the team. Now in a more permanent way, with a seat at the office and all. Carsten is doing concept art and art direction for the game, as well as making sure that our pipeline from concept drawing to the finished in-game object is smooth.

Give a big round of applause to Mads who is joining us for a month for an internship. We’ve known Mads from back when he was ye high and an intern at Titoonic. Now we’re looking forward to working with him again. Mads will be put to work on making 3d assets for the game according to Carsten’s dictatorship.

Meanwhile Tobias is finishing off a Flash game for a client – You know, to pay the bills and all – while trying not to sidetrack too much into the enchanting world of explosion design.

We’re absolutely thrilled to see the recent activity in the forums. Great ideas, great suggestions and great stories of how you guys first found the game. We love it

Here’s the gang:

Starting from the left: Yours truly (Peter), Mads, Tobias and Carsten.

Anyway, we really-really appreciate all your comments and ideas. We see that you all have some worries about the explosions and stuff, and we completely understand. Explosions is indeed the very core of Chase Ace. We’ll be working on explosions continuously for ages yet, but please consider this work-in-progress kablooey a token of our appreciation.

Have a nice summer, and see you on the other side…

Don’t forget to sign up for an Alpha test invitation…

1. Full 3D
2. Online play
3. Off-line play
4. Single player
5. Rocket jumps
6. Power-up infected
7. Multiplayer in all sorts of ways
8. A completely new game built from scratch
9. In development for a loooong time to come
10. Going into invitation-only Alpha test at some point later this year

We’re looking forward to receive your Alpha test applications.